Pashupati Paras resigns from Modi Cabinet after NDA seals Bihar deal with Chirag Paswan

Union minister Pashupati Kumar Paras resigned on Tuesday and accused the BJP of doing "injustice" with his Rashtriya Lok Janshakti Party by not including it in the seat-sharing deal with allies for the Lok Sabha polls in Bihar.

Paras's announcement came at a press conference a day after the BJP-led NDA announced its seat-sharing pact and gave five seats to the Chirag Paswan-led LJP (Ram Vilas).

Paras made brief remarks at the press conference about his resignation and did not elaborate about his future plans.

The only ally in the Union Cabinet headed by Modi, he called the prime minister a big leader.

The RLJP president said he was thankful to Modi before expressing his displeasure over the treatment meted out to him. He said he had served the National Democratic Alliance with honesty and loyalty but received injustice.

No seat allocated

Notably, the RLJP found itself completely sidelined in the seat-sharing deal that the BJP sealed with its allies in Bihar. While the BJP allotted five seats to Chirag Paswan’s LJP, including Hajipur from where Paras emerged victorious in 2019, it left no seat for the RLJP. Apart from Hajipur, the Chirag faction has also been allotted Jamui, Vaishali, Samastipur and Khagaria seats.

Paras was non-committal on entering into any deal with the Opposition parties like the Congress and the RJD. He, however, confirmed that his RLJP will contest the Hajipur seat. He had already made it clear last week that the RLJP’s five MPs, including himself, would contest the seats they won in the last elections. He also stated that their party is “free to go anywhere”, hinting at a deal with the Opposition parties.

Paras won Hajipur in the last elections as a member of the undivided Lok Janshakti Party led by then Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, who was Chirag's father. The elder Paswan, who died in October 2020, was an 8-time MP from Hajipur, which has never been won by the BJP.

The fact that the BJP chose to side with the LJP led by Chirag Paswan emphasises the belief that he now has complete command over the community vote. The Paswans account for around 6% of the voting population in Bihar.

Tough road ahead

However, it won’t be easy for the BJP to take along Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU and Chirag’s LJP as they don’t share a good equation. Nitish holds the LJP responsible for his party’s poor performance in the 2020 assembly elections in which the JDU contested 115 seats but won only 43.

The split in the LJP split was allegedly backed by the BJP. Consequently, the younger Paswan contested the assembly polls on his own and split the votes, with some community strongholds going to the BJP. As a result of it, the BJP won nearly twice as many seats.

The BJP, which is contesting 17 of the 40 Lok Sabha seats in Bihar where polling will be held in seven phases beginning April 19, is yet to comment on Paras’ resignation. The JDU will contest on 16, LJP on 5 while one seat each has been allocated to Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha and Upendra Kushwaha’s Rashtriya Lok Morcha.